28 Jun 2018

Sports survey shows low participation in club sports

4:37 pm on 28 June 2018

If you've taken a yoga class, gone for a walk or played table tennis recently, you're in good company.

16096966 - senior man is walking the dog at the beach

Walking is recreation done by 85 percent of survey respondents. Photo: 123RF

Those are three activities on the rise in New Zealand according to the latest sport and recreation participation survey.

The nationwide survey by Sport New Zealand asked 27,000 adults and 6000 young people aged 5-17 what they did between January 2017 and January 2018.

It showed nearly a third of adults spent less than half an hour a week involved in sport or active recreation.

On average, adults spent just over five hours a week active, while young people spent 11 hours a week climbing trees, playing games or sport, or otherwise being active.

The survey showed high participation in recreational activities such as walking - done by 85 percent of respondents - up from 60 percent four year ago.

The number of runners has doubled since 2014, from 19 percent to 38 percent.

Gardening was also something half of those surveyed did at least once in 2017.

Things are still not looking good for traditional club sports such as rugby, cricket and netball, which were all still in single-digit figures for participation.

Football bucked the trend though, climbing from 6 percent to 7 percent, making it one of the most popular team sports.

The survey found that as the amount of participation time increased, so did emotional wellbeing.